Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving, Inky blog readers! I'd like to extend our warmest wishes for a joyful turkey day to you and your family. And in case you haven't signed up for our current BLOG CANDY, please read our previous post for more details and to participate. :-)

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I'm on my way to face the masses at the grocery store today. With list and coupons in hand, I am all set to go!

But, first, I wanted to offer another BLOG CANDY. Since Thanksgiving isn't only about all the delicious food (or so I've been told, ha ha!), leave a note in the comments section of this post telling me something you're especially grateful for this year. I'll accept entries until Sunday, November 30th, at midnight Central time. Two winners will be randomly chosen on Monday morning. The first person whose number is drawn will receive thse two wood mounted stamps from Ronnie Walter's Festive Reindeer collection:

The second person whose number is drawn will win these:

Remember, if you post anonymously (in other words, without signing in), be sure to add your name or we won't be able to include you in our drawing. It will be the winners' responsibility to contact me via email no later than December 5th. If we don't hear from the winners, we won't be re-drawing...so please remember to come back and check. Good luck!

Thanks to everyone who played. What a fun variety of ideas for naming our new teacup mousie. The final selection hasn't been chosen yet, but you've given lots of choices to think about. And keep checking back for new BLOG CANDY...we've got more planned soon!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

I'll randomly choose the winner after I get home from the One of a Kind convention in Madison. And if you're planning to attend the show, be sure to stop by and say hello to me and Steve in the Inky booth!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Aren't these ladies a hoot! They make me smile every time I look at them...just like I do whenever I get an email from Kerry. (Besides being very talented, she's got a great sense of humor.) I think she did a fantastic job on each and every one:

These stamps are from the Worldly Women collection, which you can find by going to the Special Themes page on our website. Scroll down about halfway and look on the left, where you'll find the "Go" button.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Do you ever get frustrated tying bows? Ribbon is such a fun accent on cards, but sometimes I'll try over and over again to make a bow that looks good and fail miserably no matter how hard I work at it. But my friend Jackie from We're Stampin' Mad recently turned me on to a handy little tool called the Bow-Easy:

It's a plastic template that allows you to make seven different sizes of mini bows, and it actually works. Once I got the hang of it, I had no problem tying bow after perfect bow...in single, double, and triple loops and with a variety of ribbons:

I didn't make this video myself, but it's an excellent reference that shows how to use the Bow-Easy:

Jackie carries the Bow-Easy at her store. But if you don't live in the Twin Cities metro area, you can also order it from us by clicking here.

Update on 6/10/10:Here's a PDF file with instructions and step-by-step photos demonstrating the Bow-Easy, which you may also find helpful.

Update on 6/14/10: And here's another PDF file that contains a handy table listing the approximate lengths of ribbon you'll need to make single- or double-looped bows in each of the seven sizes:

Update on 6/30/10: You may also wish to label your Bow-Easy with a Sharpie marker to make it easy to identify which pair of prongs will yield the bow width you want:

(Note: The largest size, 2 3/4", is not labeled on the template above. It's the wider set of prongs shown at the bottom of the photo on the same side as the 1 1/4" size, underneath the Posi-Bendr Co. information.)

Thursday, November 12, 2009

I've been busily working on preparing new stamp designs from Ronnie Walter and Tammy DeYoung for our upcoming release at the end of January. (Yes, we start this early...even sooner, in fact, because it's a multi-step process to get from the drawing on paper to the finished stamp.)

I'm going to keep most of the sneak peeks under wraps for right now (I promise I'll show you more as we draw closer to the next launch), but I did want to show you this cute little mousie that Tammy created:

Isn't it sweet? This image makes me smile every time I look at it. And speaking of sweet, why don't we do a little BLOG CANDY today! Leave a note in the comments section of this post telling me what name you'd give this mousie. I'll accept entries until Sunday, November 22nd, at midnight Central time. A winner will be randomly chosen on Monday morning, and that person will receive our 4210G Mitten Mouse stamp, just in time for the holidays:

Remember, if you post anonymously (in other words, without signing in), be sure to add your name or we won't be able to include you in our drawing. It will be the winners' responsibility to contact me via email no later than November 26th. If we don't hear from the winner, we won't be re-drawing...so please remember to come back and check. Good luck, and hope you have a "micey nice" day!

Monday, November 9, 2009

It was terrific to see so many familiar faces (and some new ones, too!) on Saturday at We're Stampin' Mad, including these lovely ladies:

We made this cute Christmas card:

The main image is our new 0082H Enlightened Reindeer, the saying is 0011D Bright Season, and the background is 0569F Holiday Background.

At the end of the day, I asked Marcia to take a picture of "us two Jackies":

Before I left, Jackie showed me this set of cards using P1-1393 Berry Tree from the Studio 490 Collection at Stampers Anonymous, one of our sister companies:

They featured a couple of different techniques at their monthly Lunchtime Demo over a period of several months, until they'd completed a vast array of projects. I thought it was so cool to see how the same stamp can look entirely different depending on how it's used. There was foiling, dye resist, direct-to-paper inking, and a ton more...which techniques can you spot?

On Saturday evening, Steve and I went out with our friends Mike and Marilee to celebrate Mike's birthday. He chose Fogo de Chao as our restaurant, which is a Brazilian steakhouse. Check out these succulent slabs of roasted goodness:

It's basically like a huge gourmet meat buffet that comes to your table. Each diner places a token next to his or her plate with either the green or red side facing up. The green side means "I'd like more," and the gauchos (Brazilian cowboys) who roam the room with more than a dozen different meats will offer to slice off a hunk of whatever they've got skewered onto your plate:

You can enjoy this meatfest until the cows come home (sorry, LOL, I couldn't resist):

The birthday boy gave it a thumbs up:

The rest of us rolled away from the table that night.

Oh, and remember all those card pieces I'd made last week for the store sample board program? I put them together yesterday and this morning:

Today I'll send them to our main office and shop in Cleveland so they can be placed onto display boards and sent out with the stamp orders. That's a lotsa cards, huh!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Yesterday and today were a cut-up...literally! I spent a lot of quality time with my paper trimmer to get ready for tomorrow's Make & Take event at We're Stampin' Mad, and here are the results:

I'll take a picture of the finished card when I'm there. My Cuttlebug, embossing folder, and Nestabilities dies also got a workout as I made all the pieces to put together the December cards for our store sample board program (which I'll be assembling on Sunday):

Sunday, November 1, 2009

As I mentioned yesterday, I've got some photos from our Halloween party in case you're curious. I dressed up as Snow White, and Steve was a dwarf:

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's comments about their Halloween costumes in the previous post (and there's still time to add yours if you haven't already done so...with a chance to win some BLOG CANDY, too).

I was happy with how ours turned out this year, but I'd have to say my favorite outfit ever was the time I made myself into a breakfast table! I used a piece of foamcore cut out so I could fit it around my middle and held it up with suspenders (the foamcore, that is...not my middle, LOL). I covered it with a plastic tablecloth and then attached a cereal bowl, milk carton, silverware, and juice glass with hot glue. I was teaching middle school at the time, and the kids really got a kick out of it.

Speaking of breakfast, bet you can guess what Jeannette was:

Yup, a cereal killer! Shannon and Suzie really got creative and made their playing cards themselves:

I had a lot of fun planning our menu. The Slitering Stromboli was a hit and very easy to make using frozen bread dough and sandwich fillings:

All the guys especially liked the Barbecued Bat Wings, which were rather disgusting looking (much to their delight):

I was partial to the Cheesenstein myself, just because I thought it was such a neat idea:

I tinted the deviled egg filling with green food coloring, topped each spoonful with a sliced black olive, and then finished them off with "veins" drawn with a toothpick and red food coloring. We had a few other dishes, as well, but this was the hands-down most popular one...so I thought I'd share the recipe with you:

Cut eggs in half lengthwise, remove the yolks, and reserve the whites. Mash yolks until smooth, combine with rest of ingredients, and mix well. Spoon mixture into center of egg whites and chill until serving time.

* * *

These were so good, I may have to make them for Thanksgiving...minus the food coloring, of course. If you give them a try, please let me know how they turn out for you!

About Me

Copyright Policy

All designs, projects, and instructions shown on this blog are for personal, non-commercial use only and may not be sold in any form or reproduced for other purposes without specific written permission from Inky Antics.

Inky Antics images are copyrighted and nay not be mechanically reproduced or copied by any means including, but not limited to, photocopying, computer scanning and printing, using overhead or opaque projectors for enlarging or hand-copying images, or computer downloading and editing.

Our artists and employees work hard to bring you new images and quality products. Thank you for helping to make this possible by respecting our copyright.